


The Secrets we Keep

by SLunne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Child Abuse, Drunkenness, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Harry Potter, Past Child Abuse, Stream of Consciousness, descriptions of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-19 15:43:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5972842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLunne/pseuds/SLunne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem with ignoring the past is that it usually comes back in the most unexpected moments. And when one has a secret one wishes to be kept, reemergence of the past is the worst when you are unprepared to counter it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Secrets we Keep

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure what compelled me to write this. Honestly? I’m drunk. So. Perfect time to be unapologetic in my writing. This probably won’t be very good, as I usually don’t touch the HP fandom with my fanfic bc of my own doubts. But here’s something angsty I guess. 
> 
> Takes place after the epilogue, probably not “Cursed Child” compliant. Lilly has just gone to Hogwarts, leaving Harry and Ginny with an “empty nest.”

The problem with ignoring the past is that it usually comes back in the most unexpected moments. And when one has a secret one wishes to be kept, reemergence of the past is the worst when you are unprepared to counter it.

The Dursleys were a secret that Harry very much wanted to keep buried and forgotten. Dudley didn’t count, Harry doubted that Dudley even knew to what extent Harry’s secret went. He certainly didn’t mention anything, and beyond a few vague hints suggesting that he regretted being such a bully, Dudley never mentioned his parents.

He and Dudley got on all right, perhaps a bit awkwardly at times. Even so, it was strange to be seeing Dudley without the pretense of a holiday or birthday celebration to act as a buffer. Harry hadn’t been sure what to expect when Dudley had rang his and Ginny’s home one blustery afternoon in mid September, asking if all his children had gotten to school. Asking if he and Ginny would like to meet up for dinner and drinks.

With a general shrug at Ginny’s confused look, Harry had accepted.

Dinner had been fine, nothing exceptional but pleasing. Dudley’s home was eerily familiar to Privit Drive, always immaculate. But Harry could play off the stiffness in his shoulders as stress from work, and he could force himself to sit next to Ginny on the flowery print sofa and respond to the dim pleasantries he owed Dudley’s wife out of politeness.

“Empty nesters, we are,” Dudley mumbled as he swirled the last swallow of amber liquid around his glass.

Harry hummed in agreement as he tipped back the last of his own glass. Absently he wondered if that was his fifth or sixth drink of the evening. He’d lost count during desert. “It feels strange to have such a quiet house.”

“D’you miss them, then?” Dudley asked, his voice a bit sharp. Merlin, he was completely sloshed, wasn’t he?

“’Course I do,” he answered, over reaching for the bottle of whiskey and nearly toppling it in his attempt to pour himself another drink. Maybe he was a bit more tipsy than he’d realized as well. “Nothin’s th’ same with’ou ‘m running around. But they’re havin’ the time of their lives, I bet. Hogwarts ‘s like home, really.”

“I think you’ve had enough, don’t you Harry?” Ginny said suddenly, in that tone that meant it wasn’t a question, but rather a statement. But Harry continued to pour his glass full.

“I’d like jus’ one more.” He could feel Ginny’s concerned gaze on him, but ignored it for the time being. Wasn’t it time to be leaving yet?

“I miss mine terribly,” Dudley’s voice said waveringly, and Harry looked up to see there were traces of tears in his eyes. “They just need so much attention, y’know? Between work and home, I’ve got no time to think abou’ things. But now they’re both gone and I can’t stop thinking. Keeps me up at night. I jus’ sit there remembering.”

Harry watched in a sort of morbid fascination as the tears started rolling down his cousin’s face. Different from all the times Dudley had cried giving a tantrum when they were children. There was a broken look in his eyes, the kind of look he’d sometimes seen in his friends.

“D’you know,” Dudley continued talking, swallowing thickly, never even attempting to wipe away the moisture on his face. “D’you know I caught my boy, _my_ Denis in a fight with another boy? Two years younger, he was. Little. And Denis is a big fellow, he’s got a lot in those fists. I got so sick, Harry. Thought I was goin’t be sick. Took him straight home and to his room. Talked him down good and proper. He didn’ get to touch the computer ‘r television until it was time for term to start. But I’m so afraid it wasn’ enough.”

Now Dudley was breathing heavily, and Harry found he couldn’t speak. He was vaguely aware that they weren’t alone, that this was real and Dudley was actually crying because his son might be a bully. It seemed too strange.

“I don’ want him t’be like me, Harry,” Dudley said with a heavy sob. “I don’ want him to be selfish bully and turn a blind eye to things.” Harry’s blood went explicitly cold as Dudley’s eyes snapped to his. “I knew Harry. I saw it. There was no way I couldn’t’ve.”

“Dudley,” Harry hissed sharply, his heart beating fast, hyper aware of the way Ginny stiffened in the seat beside him. But Dudley wasn’t stopping.

“I saw Dad those times when he hit you, an’ when Mum would burn you with th’pan on purpose. And I knew it was on purpose ‘cause she’d _wink_ at me like it was somthin’ I was supposse’to think was funny. I heard Dad choking you at night when you’d had a nightmare. I saw th’ knife Harry…” and Dudley drew a deep shuddering breath, shaking from head to foot. “An’ I just walked away. I let it happen…every time. I never said anythin’. Pretended not to notice. And you’d always hav’to clean it all up. Watched you clean your own blood up by yourself. Watched you be shoved into that damn cupboard for weeks at a time with no food with your arm all twisted funny and your neck completely purple. I didn’t say anything…I just watched…pretended not to know that it was _wrong_.”

Dudley collapsed in tears, broken syllables that vaguely resembled apologies heaving out with his moans of anguish.

Harry sat completely still. Completely void of all colour and recognition.

This wasn’t happening.

He wasn’t sitting in his cousin’s living room. Dudley couldn’t be crying into his hands. Dudley’s wife wasn’t staring at him with horror in her eyes. Ginny hadn’t just heard his childhood secret.

“Harry?” Ginny’s voice cut through the haze filling his mind, and the gentle hand on his thigh caused him to flinch violently.

And that just said everything, didn't it?


End file.
